Page 11 - The lraternational Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand.indd

The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XV-2023

In 2022, two researchers affiliated with different organizations in Thailand were
featured in online blog posts that presented evidence of their involvement in paper
mill service activities (Schneider, 2022; Wise, 2022). Subsequently, concerns about the

transparency of some of their articles, including issues related to reproducibility, result
fabrications, and collaborations among co-authors from diverse academic domains,
were raised on PubPeer forums (https://pubpeer.com/). The compilation of this evidence

has resulted in the retraction of several of their articles and has also sparked heightened
public attention and awareness regarding research integrity within the broader
community in Thailand. Later in 2023, their involvement with paper mill services of

these researchers, along with some additional researchers, were confirmed following
formal investigations by the ethical committees of their respective organizations.

This emerging issue highlights the need for tools to detect and address research
misconduct within the academic community, particularly in Thailand.

Social network analysis is a versatile tool for exploring entity relationships,

applicable across various domains. It has been used to explore collaborative networks
among institutions, countries, or regions, pinpointing influential knowledge drivers
in specific fields (Fonseca et al, 2016). Further, ego-centric network analysis, a subset

of social network analysis that examines partial networks centered around a single
individual (referred to as ‘ego’), has also been used to examine co-authorship patterns
and assess the performance of individual researchers (Abbasi et al, 2012). With the

proliferation of paper mill activities in recent years, the true collaborative network
patterns among academic entities may have become obscured by the presence of false
co-authorships from these activities. Yet, it is reasonable to expect that extensive use

of such services can create a distinct authorship profile distinguishable through a
network analysis approach.

The objective of this study was to utilize ego-centric network analysis to

examine the various authorship profiles of researchers formally identified as clients of
paper mill services and assess how they differ, if at all, from other researchers within

their academic circles. These distinct profiles could potentially serve as indicators for
identifying misconduct activities. Our focus was on the Thai research community,
presented as a case study with potential applicability to broader contexts.

Phrutsamon Wongnak et al. 3